Actively Wondering Every Day

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Working on this little cookbook has been a blast. As I've said before, I don't know if anyone really wants it, but I really wanted to do it. This is my way of nurturing myself and y'all. This isn't a huge cookbook--we're looking at about fifty recipes, and some random chitchat all told--but I hopeful it'll be helpful.

Now I'd love to include you in the process!

I'm on the hunt for recipe testers. You do not have to be a professional cook. You don't even need to be a good cook. I just need someone willing to follow the recipe, and give me honest feedback that includes if and how well the recipe instilled confidence in the cook, and if it produced the desired results. Testers are welcome—nay, begged to—offer any other comments, suggestions, and feedback.

Every recipe tester will be acknowledged in the cookbook (unless anonymity is preferred), and receive the completed cookbook in ebook format. There might be a few tester-comments that'll make their way into the book, toom with appropriate permission.

Below is the list of recipes I'm looking to test, and am looking to have feedback in by December 23. All you need to do is go down the list, choose what sounds good (or ask clarifying questions first), and let me know in the comments what you'd like to test in your own home. I'll email or direct-message the recipe to you within twenty-four hours.

A couple of general notes:

--A couple of the recipes are crockpot-only, but most include instructions for more than one cooking method.--If you're looking for recipes that'll match certain dietary guidelines, let me know and I'll point out the ones that'll match.--Most of the meat-containing recipes also include notes on being flexible with meat options.--Some recipes are far less expensive or more expensive to test than others. If this is a concern but you still want to test, please drop me a private note and we'll make something work.--If you've cooked one of my publicly-posted recipes before and have feedback—and it doesn't matter if that recipe is included below!—do feel free to pass it along.

I began the month with great hope of making marvelous progress on the novella I'm serializing at Patreon as well as the third book of Desert Rising. That... became a struggle. Oh, I've made some progress, but not at all what I wanted.

Instead, I've made marvelous progress on the cookbook.

I have no idea if anyone, anywhere, will have any interest in this thing, but wow have I been motivated to work on it.

Y'see, I can't feed y'all from here, so putting together and sharing recipes is the next best thing. A nurturing thing. An attempt-to-give-comfort thing.

Someone asked me the cookbook's "theme."

That would be, "Stuff I Like To Cook and Eat That Doesn't Cost A Fortune Or Take Forever To Make." Yeah, there are a couple more complicated and/or expensive ones, but they're the great minority.

I mentioned on Twitter that I'll be looking for recipe testers pretty soon, and I'll make sure to announce it here in case there are interested folks. And if you've already tried one of the recipes I've posted here in the past and have comments, concerns, problems with it, and so forth, please let me know!

Later today, I'll be "practicing" caramel sauce with my nephews. It's an awesome, easy, and decadent thing to make for the holidays. I started doing it on Halloween when Dev was little because I could easy get him and his friends to eat apples before trick-or-treating. :-)

All you need are five ingredients—water, sugar, butter, cream, vanilla—and you'll want all them measured and at room temperature when you start the process. Caramel is pretty easy, but the cooking process moves quickly. The one way you can almost always ruin a batch is to interrupt the process once you start.

Also, don't use anything plastic to stir and whisk while cooking. It will melt into the caramel. Eww.

Combine the water and sugar in a sauce pan over medium heat, and stir until the sugar dissolves completely. (If you want to be picky, be careful not to let sugar granules cling to the sides of the pan. They can sometimes encourage your caramel to re-crystalize as it cools!)

Now: Once the sugar-water starts bubbling, don't stir anymore. Just swirl the pan now and then to make sure the heat is even. Adjust the heat as needed to keep a steady and, um, non-violent? boil. Then watch the liquid turn a lovely pale amber. It should be about he color of fresh honey, NOT as dark as you'd think for caramel.

It might take about ten minutes or so.

A little at a time, whisk in the room temperature cream. Please be careful pouring the cream into the hot sugar liquid. I don't want you burned by the splatter. Been there, done that, don't want to go there again.

Remove the pan from the heat immediately, and whisk in the butter.

Add vanilla, if you'd like.

If you want salted caramel, now is the time to add your kosher salt. Maybe half to a full teaspoon, depending on your preference.

If your sauce seems too thin, warm it—stirring constantly—over low heat. But keep in mind the sauce will thicken as it cools!

If your sauce seems too thick, stir in a little more cream, a tablespoon at a time.

That's it! Drizzle it over pie or ice cream or sliced apples or cake or popcorn or nuts or just your spoon...

Darlings, I know it's way past Thanksgiving, but folks are still cooking turkey (heck, I've another one in my freezer just waiting for January!). And someone asked me what to do with giblets and carcass, so... Here it is!

If you don't mind the extra work and mess, you've some awesomeness awaiting you with all that leftover turkey (or a whole chicken, for that matter). Sure, you can do the usual leftover stuff—turkey and dumplings, turkey soup, turkey salad, turkey tacos, turkey curry, so on and so forth. But you can make the most amazing broth with all those parts most folks toss out as unusable.

First, know you'll need two rather large cooking pots—one to cook the stock, one to strain the stock into once it's done cooking. DON'T think you can drain it into a glass/pottery pot, please. The sudden introduction of boiling-hot liquid can cause it to crack, and them you'll lose your pot and your broth!

Now: go over that turkey carcass for all the little bits of meat you can find. You won't get all of it—not-yet—so don't spend half a day on it. Just get everything you can with a small knife and fingers. Put all those little pieces in the fridge for later.

Put the rest of the carcass in a pot large enough to hold it and the bunch of other stuff included below. You'll notice my measurements are... not exact. That's because I tend to dump herbs and spices until I think it's about right, based on what I've done before. So use the amounts as a general recommendation, and adjust to your own tastes. In my experience, it takes at least five tries to get a recipe close to matching your own particular tastes, so feel free to play!

The other stuff that goes in the pot includes:

The giblets that were packed inside your turkey. Don't cut these up. Just dump them in. On the other hand, if you have loving pets who deserve holiday treats—and mine always do!—you just put the neck in the pot for broth and distribute all else as treats.

Two large onions, quartered

Four to six celery stalks, leaves and all, cut only enough to fit in the pot

Four or five carrots, tops and all, cut only enough to fit in the pot

(Why not chop them smaller? Because you want to be able to strain them out, and that's a pain when pieces are little!)

Tablespoon, maybe a little more, of salt. Sea salt is most awesome. If you want an exact measurement of salt... Umm, about a Tbsp per gallon of water used?

Cloves of garlic. I use four or five. If you're using pre-minced garlic, maybe dump in a heaping tablespoon. You know your garlic needs better than I do.

Tablespoon-ish of sage (or 3 Tbsp fresh)

1/2 tablespoon-ish of marjoram (2 Tbsp fresh)

1/2 tablespoon-ish of rosemary (2 Tbsp fresh)

(The above three measurements are total approximations, especially with the fresh herbs. You have wiggle-room, though, so unless you're totally against a certain flavor, don't worry about being exact.)

3 whole bay leaves

Some black pepper. (I'm not a pepper fan, so I skimp here, It's up to you.)

Once you have all that in the pot, add enough water to cover the carcass. Kinda. I had a such a huge turkey this year, I couldn't cover the carcass without nearly overflowing the pot. So I waited until the broth had been cooking for an hour—enough to soften the carcass—then was able to break it apart enough to fit under the water.

Put that huge and heavy pot on the stove and turn up the heat. As soon as it just barely starts to boil, turn the heat way down to a simmer. You do not want a rolling boil, folks.* Cover it up and leave it alone. Leave it along for a long, long time. Like, at least three hours. It will smell amazing.

Okay! End of three hours!

Now you need another really big pot and a big colander. Put the latter inside the former. Pour all the yummy-smelling stuff through the colander. Breathe deeply. Set the colander aside to cool for a bit. Don't throw anything away yet!

You could call the broth done at this point. I don't. I put it back on the stove, uncovered, at a simmer for another hour or so. The additional cooking deepens the flavor, in my opinion.Now your broth is done. Yes, some folks like to strain it until it's a clear broth. Me, I don't see a reason for that. Some folks put it in the fridge overnight, then skim all the fat off the top. Nah, that takes out a ton of flavor, and some nutrition as well!* All I do is freeze it in containers of a size that'll fit my recipes. I freeze most of it in large containers because I love making soup and gravy, but freezing a couple ice cube trays of broth gives you small amounts to use for cooking vegetables, rice, or mashed potatoes.

Once the stuff in the colander is cool enough to touch, begin Round Two of carcass-picking. Most times you'll be amazed at how much little bits of meat you'll find. Lots of folks skip this step—it's a hassle, and it's messy—but when I was dirt poor, that last picking meant another whole meal.

Or, if your loving pets did not receive treats earlier, or if they deserve more treats—and mine always do!—distribute those little bits of yummy meat accordingly.

No bones for loving pets, though, right? I know you know that. Consider it a legally required PSA.

Once you've done, or chosen not to do, the last pick-over, toss out everything from the colander. Yes, everything. You've cooked the hell out of it. Let it go.And please tell me how it turns out!

Final note: This is one of the ways I was able to keep my growing adolescent son filled with nutritious food when my food budget was around $35 a week (plus veggies I'd grown or canned/frozen). I could get three to four meals worth of protein for us out of one big $7-$8 chicken, and had enough broth left over to up the nutrition of bean or vegetable soup for another meal. Besides, from my turkey this year, I came away with 1 1/2 gallons of homemade broth. Were I to purchase poultry/chicken broth from the store, that would cost me around ten to twelve dollars, I think.

* Many recipes recommend skimming the broth while it's cooking to get rid of what they call "scum." That stuff that gets a little frothy on top of broth is not scum. It is protein from the bones. And honestly, once I stopped getting my broth up to a hard boil and let it simmer instead, very little even showed up. Sure, the protein is still there in the broth, but the teensy particles remain diffused. Of course, if you want a crystal clear broth, all of that stuff—along with the fats, the herbs, and everything else must be strained out. That's "professional" broth. I like the homemade stuff instead. :)

Roasting a turkey can be danged intimidating, considering the size of the thing you're putting in the oven. Me, I learned how to make turkey-roasting, and chicken-roasting, work really well when I was dead broke. A whole bird costs way less than the already-prepped parts, and can provide better meals and nutrition on a tight, tight budget.

But roasting a whole turkey is much easier than cooking shows and sitcoms make it out to be. Here's my foolproof -- yes, foolproof! -- way to make your chicken or turkey come out tasty and not-at-all-dry. I'm going to include basic steps, too, because not everyone is accustomed to cooking whole birds.

The bird must be defrosted. Google the instructions if you're not sure how to make this happen safely.

Find out the proper temperature and cooking time for the size of bird you're cooking. Google can be your friend. I tend to use the chart in my grandmother's Better Homes cookbook.

Remove the innards that are included with the whole bird. Usually these are in a bag stuffed inside the turkey/chicken. If you want to know what to do with them other than "Throw out those gross looking things!" let me know and I'll do another post. :)

Quarter onions and cut celery lengths to fit inside the bird. How much? Well, enough to stuff the inside. But wait! Before you put the onion and celery inside the bird, sprinkle them with sage, marjoram, and garlic. I like lots of all three, so I suggest using a lot. It's up to you.

Once the celery and onions are coated, stuff them in the bird. I put about three tablespoons of butter -- rather, three one-tablespoon hunks of butter -- in there, too. After, my mother likes to use little metal pins to close up the open cavity. Me, I just stuff in more celery and don't worry about it.

The stuffed bird goes breast-up on a roasting rack, and the rack goes in a deep-sided roasting pan. The rack keeps the bird off the bottom of the pan so it cooks more evenly; the pan catches all the drippings because OMG GRAVY MADE FROM DRIPPINGS IS MARVELOUS.

But wait! There's more!

Melt a ton of butter. Okay, maybe not a ton. Maybe half a cup or more will do. You can always melt more later. You don't want it to be burning hot. Just enough to be mixable and malleable.

Put a bunch of sage and marjoram and garlic in the melted butter.* No, I can't be much more specific, but I can tell you I've NEVER used too much sage or marjoram. Garlic is up to you. :)

Rub and pour that herb-and-butter stuff all over the bird. All. Over. Topside and underside and between the wings and everywhere. If the bird is cold, the butter will start to solidify on the skin, and that's just fine. Use every last bit. Don't skimp.

If you have some herb-and-butter left over, you did it wrong. Keep rubbing and pouring.

Sprinkle salt all over the bird. Pepper, too, if you want. I never do.

Wash your hands. Really, they're probably pretty gross right now.

Use a bunch of foil to cover the bird. Tent it so it touches the bird as little as possible.

Put the foil-tented bird in the oven at the temperature your earlier Google/research found, and set the time for ONE HOUR LESS than the recommended cooking time.

When that one-hour-less time comes up, pull out the bird and remove the foil. If needed, use a baster to pour the drippings over the top of the turkey. (If you're not sure if it's needed, just do it. To my knowledge, no turkey has ever been ruined from too much basting.)

Use some of the foil to wrap the bones of the legs and the tips of the wings. Think of it as adding foil socks and mittens that keep those parts from burning.

Put the bird back in the oven. If your bird has one of those little pop-out temperature indicator things, wait for it to pop out. If it doesn't, use your thermometer to find out when the thigh is at about 180 degrees.

(Look: I know I'm supposed to be very, very concerned with that temperature. I've actually never tested it. I've also never died or been sickened by poultry. I do , however, feel obligated to provide "official" numbers. YMMV.)

If the bird looks about as brown as you ever want it to be, but none of your temperature measurements indicate it's sufficiently cooked, just put the foil back on!

When your chosen method of temperature measurement says, "You're good!" set the bird aside to cool for about half an hour before carving.

I can't give you excellent carving advice. I just cut the thing apart.

No matter how many people you're serving, you'll have leftovers—even if it's just the body carcass. If you want to know what to do next, let me know and I'll do a "So You Have A Poultry Carcass" post.

Any questions?

*You can use tarragon instead of sage and marjoram. It's a unique, somewhat sweeter, taste. Or you can sprinkle smoked paprika on everything along with the salt. It's adds a bit of a barbeque flavor.

The winds are cold, the landscape is bland, and the days are short of sunlight. Sometimes that makes me crave heavy and warm meals: beef stew, casseroles, thick soups. But sometimes, like today, I want something that instead tastes bright and lively.

This recipe is for the crockpot, because crockpots fit my schedule of prepping for dinner around three in the afternoon, heading off to work by four, then coming home to eat between nine and ten at night. BUT! The recipe can be done stovetop just as easily if you're home to keep an eye on it while it simmers. Either way, a major benefit of this meal is its aroma as it cooks.

As usual, the recipe might include directions such as some or a whole bunch or about this amount. I tend to favor meals that are forgiving, flexible, and can be adapted for individual taste. I also prefer intense flavors, so tend to increase the amount of spices a recipe includes. This is why I am not a baker.

Coconut Curry Chicken SoupChicken, cut into cubes. If you want a hearty meal, use a couple pounds. If you want something lighter, use less and cut it into smaller pieces. Dark meat? White meat? That's up to you. I've used both, and have enjoyed both.2 c onions, diced or slivered2 c carrots, chopped as you like2 c sweet pepper of your choice, chopped or slivered as you like4 tsp garlic, minced (I use more, so do as you wish)1 tsp ground ginger (Okay, I usually use 2 tsp)1 Tbsp curry powder (If you're me, it'll be 2 Tbsp.)6 – 8 c chicken brothSome lemongrass, if you can get it. I usually can't, so I use the juice of a couple limes PLUS the zest of one. YMMV.1 1/2 to 2 c of coconut milk. (NOT coconut water. Dear God, no.)2 Tbsp peanut butter1 Tbsp soy sauceA bunch of cilantro, choppedA bunch of lime wedgesRed pepper flakes to your taste

Cook the chicken in a bit of olive oil. Dump it in the crockpot.

Put a little more olive oil in the bottom of your pan, then saute the onions, carrots, and peppers. Add a little bit of the chicken broth, then all the garlic, curry, and ginger. Stir it well, let it simmer for about five minutes, then add the lemongrass/lime stuff. Pour it over the chicken. ETA: Add the rest of the chicken broth. (Thanks, thanate !)

Cook on High for 3-4 hours, or Low for 5-7 hours. This is one where the LOW setting is the best. The longer those spices are together and warm, the more love they give you. (This makes it especially wonderful for make-ahead meals because the flavors are even better on Day Two.)

About half an hour to an hour before serving, stir in the coconut milk, soy and peanut butter. If you want more of a kick, add the pepper flakes.

Now cook up your jasmine rice. (Or whatever rice you'd like.)

Once the rice is ready, put some in each bowl. Add as much cilantro as you like. Ladle the soup atop the rice and cilantro, with lime wedges on the side. If you have a guest who likes things on the more-spicy side, offer them more red pepper flakes.

I am passionate about my crockpot. It gets used at least once a week, and that one use provides at least three or four meals for my son and I.

Tonight was a new recipe – pork roast with balsamic vinegar and honey. Let me tell you, my darlings, this was so wonderful, I wish I’d cooked a double batch. The flavors were rich without being heavy, the pork was fall-apart tender, and sweet and sour were perfectly balanced.

Unlike some crockpot recipes that require a bunch of chopping this and that, this one took less than five minutes from the time I reached for the crockpot to start to the moment I walked away to let it cook.

There are a bunch of variations of this recipe around. I tweaked it a bit for my tastes.

Rub the roast with the salt and garlic, then place it in the crockpot. Combine balsamic, broth and soy sauce. Pour it around the roast. Sprinkle a bunch of smoked paprika on top of the roast. Drizzle the honey on top of all that. Put the crockpot on HIGH for about four hours (or low for, I’m guessing, 7-8 hours).

That’s it! I cut the roast into thick slices, poured some of the balsamic sauce over it (if you wanted to be more complicated, I suppose you could reduce the liquid into a glaze), and served it with some carrots in butter. Tomorrow, I’ll use some of the leftover pork and liquid for split pea soup.